Northeast Region Soybean Checkoff Research

The NRSB directors make decisions on research funding according to set priorities, but may also react to emerging issues, such as rust. All forms and procedures are the same for NRSB as for PSPB. For more information on applying for research, priorities and guidelines, click here.

Funded Research for FY07

Two projects were funded for FY07 for a total of $43,202:

On-Farm Soybean IPM Education Programs: Cultivating Enhanced Soybean Management - Julianne Dennis - $21,169

Enhancing Soybean Seed Yield by Delaying Leef Senescence - Susheng Gan - $22,033.

Research Summaries

The Northeast Region Board has funded multiple research projects over the years. Here are summary reports from recent checkoff research:

A team of researchers headed by Julianne Stavinsky, Extension livestock and field crops specialist in western New York for Cornell University, was awarded a checkof grant of $7,777 to conduct an on-farm, season-long integrated pest management education program from soybean producers across New York State, where, incidentally, soybean acreage has increased more than four fold since 1989 with an estimated 175,000 acres planted in 2004.

Under terms of the grant from the the Northeast Region Soybean Board, researchers created three Tactical Agriculture (TAg) teams, each consisting of six growers, an ag business representative and an Extension agent. Each farmer picked a field in which soybeans would be planted and which served as the IPM classrooms for the team for the season. Stavinsky and her colleagues planned to start with three Tag teams in three counties but plan to expand the outreach in subsequent years. Stavinsky estimated that based on the past success of the Tag team program, the researchers will achieve an adoption of IPM practices in more than 85 percent of the farmers.

In an interim report midway through the growing season, the research team reported it had called the Tag teams together in early May “to introduce the participants to the soybean TAg program and to administer a pre-questionnaire to assess current pest and crop knowledge.” Across all three counties represented by the TAg teams, few were able to answer questions about soybean pest identification and management. “We are using those results to help shape our curriculum,” the researchers said.

Subsequent meetings were held in mid-June, late July and August during the which TAg team members were trained in plant growth stages, spider mite control, and foliar diseases, among other topics, as they scouted the fields.

“We have received very positive feedback on the program,” the researchers reported. “Word has spread throughout the region about how valuable the program is, and many other producers in the state hope to participate in an on-farm soybean IPM education team in the future,”

The Northeast Soybean Board awarded a checkoff grant of $10,000 to a team of researchers headed by John Losey, an associate professor of entomology at Cornell, to evaluate the economic injury level, the biological control and the host plant resistance of the soybean aphid in New York State.

This is the continuation of a study which began in 2001 when soybean aphids were discovered in the 26 counties which were being monitored. In 2003, New York experienced yield loss due to the aphid for the first time. ”Damaging soybean aphid populations in two counties for two years, high populations in several new areas and the presence of aphids throughout soybean variety trials surveyed in 2004 confirm its prevalence in New York State and its potential to be a serious pest,” Losey wrote to the soybean board. “Better information is needed to help producers meet the soybean aphid challenge should more fields reach economically damaging levels in the future.”

In August of the 2005 growing season, the researchers issued an interim report to the soybean board which included these observations”

• A field experiment was initiated to study the relatrionshiup between soybean yield loss and aphid density and to start to define an economic injury level. “Interestingly,” the report said, “at the end of July aphid populations in the cages and across the research farm plummeted to low levels. Soybean tields will be taken on a per plant basis this year.”

• Variety trials in New York included 33 soybean varieties and in each plot, the abundance of aphids and the yield impacts were measured. Aphid counts in 2004 ranged as high as 400 per plant but yields had not been tallied as of the August report.

• 𠇊phids peaked to damaging levels in an increasing number of places in New York and soybean acreage is being treated more widely in New York this year,” the researchers reported “We will continue to monitor aphids in other locations to see whether populations are controlled by existing natural enemies and abiotic factors.”

Finally, the researchers reported they are collaborating with Drs. Bill Cox and Elson Shields in a new study comparing the effect of planting date and seed/plant treatment on aphid numbers. “So far this season,” they said, “both seed treatments (Cruiser and Gaucho) are working fairly well, on average aphid populations are lower than in untreated plots.”

In 2004, Cornell Extension Assistant Michael Stanyard undertook a study to compare yields of soybeans under zone tillage, deep ripping and strip tilling using various row spacings. He was looking for an optimum tillage/row spacing combination but reported that various factors, including a lack of consistent plant populations across all treatments, made it difficult to draw any conclusions. However, he did report that “the bottom line continues to be that some type of reduced (stripped) tillage … just prior to planting continues to yield well with educated inputs.”

Perhaps more intriguing, Stanyard said, was that the trial “stimulated another looming question of optimum plant stand.” One way to reduce costs is to reduce seeds per acre and he noted that Cornell researchers and some farmers will be experimenting “to see just how low they can go.”

Northeast Region Soybean Board

Please email the soybean board office with suggestions for soybean production research.

Send an email